GUEST BIO

Strom Thurmond's Secret Daughter Reveals
Memoir

By The 700 Club

December 2003 brought some astounding news to the world –
legendary South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond was the father of
a 78-year-old daughter that the world knew nothing about. Most
astounding was that this daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams,
had a black mother, a mother that Essie Mae didn’t know
was her birth mother until she was 13 years old.

It was the summer of 1938 when Essie Mae’s tranquil life
in Coatesville, Penn., totally changed. Her father, John Henry
Washington, worked in the steel mills, as did many in this steel
town and simply disappeared from her life one day. Her parents
got divorced. In keeping with her mother’s (Mary) philosophy
of the fewer the questions the better, Essie Mae learned to keep
her questions to herself. It was also during this year that a
tall, regal lady came to visit them. Mary introduced the visitor
as Essie Mae’s Aunt Carrie, but there was something so mesmerizing
about this lady that Essie couldn’t take her eyes off her
and followed her around the house. Finally, Carrie gave her the
sweetest smile and said, “I’m your mother, you know.”
“I was stunned speechless,” Essie Mae says. If this
beautiful creature was her mother, who were the woman and man
whom she’d thought were her parents all those years?

The story began to unfold. Carrie put Essie Mae in the care of
her sister Mary, who was moving up north with her husband from
Edgefield, S.C., to live a better life. It was a giant sacrifice,
Carrie said, but it was all about Essie’s welfare. Children
were often “farmed out” like this among black families
in those days, but it was rarely talked about.

The Second Shocker: He's Your Father

It was six months before Essie saw Carrie again. Carrie had moved
north, and they grew closer when she spent more time with her.
Essie had a brother named Willie, and they spent wonderful times
touring Philadelphia. Mary wasn’t a very religious person
and would sleep in on Sundays, but Essie grew to love the church
at age 13 and joined it. Carrie was active in a Pentecostal church.
Essie’s faith in Christ has always been an integral part
of her life.

Essie still had questions about her real father, but mindful
of her mother Mary’s admonition about asking too many questions,
Essie didn’t ask. Three years later, when she was 16, that
changed. Essie and her family were to go to South Carolina for
a family funeral. This was Essie’s first trip south, and
all her fantasies about travel changed once she reached Richmond,
Va., and saw segregation in full force. In the tiny town of Edgefield,
S.C., after walking past many palatial homes, she finally met
her mother’s family, who lived in virtual shacks with no
running water or electricity. There was nothing to do, really,
but go from house to house and eat.

One morning prior to leaving, Carrie woke Essie and told her
she would meet her father that day. Essie had noticed that her
complexion was much lighter than her mother’s, but didn’t
dare ask why. Carrie fussed about what Essie’s clothes were
for this meeting. She and Carrie walked passed many black men
working outside. Essie thought sooner or later one of them would
be introduced to her as her father. They finally arrived at a
one-story white building that housed a law office – Thurmond
& Thurmond, Attys at Law. Essie thought her new daddy “was
a driver for a big-shot lawyer.” As they stood in a grand
office stocked floor to ceiling with law books and diplomas, Essie
saw a fair, handsome man enter. He gazed at her mother for a long
while, “then stared at me even longer.” “You
have a lovely young daughter,” he said. Essie was speechless.
“Essie Mae,” Carrie said, with a big smile, “meet
your father.” Essie couldn’t get out one word. “This
was even crazier than when I learned that Carrie was my mother,”
she says.

Their awkward conversation led to an impromptu history lesson
on the South Carolina state seal. Her father had been a teacher
and had a love for learning, Essie discovered. She also learned
that this is how her mother knew so many things. Once their visit
was completed, Strom gripped her hand in a vise-like grip and
pumped it vigorously. Back at her family’s home, everyone
wondered how the meeting with her father went – it seemed
everyone knew about this little secret but her!

Before returning to Penn., Strom’s sister Mary drove up
to their shanty home carrying an envelope with $200 inside. It
was an enormous sum in 1941. It was the first of many cash gifts
over the years. Wanting to keep their relationship secret, for
political and social reasons, Thurmond strove never to leave a
paper trail.

Strom, the Dixiecrat

As with Carrie, after each visit, Essie Mae never knew when she
would see her father again. Essie was a good student, and Strom
took an active interest in her life and education, inquiring about
her educational plans whenever they talked. She dreamed of a career
in medicine, but that changed after enrolling in a nursing program
in Harlem. When her dreams of attending Harvard evaporated, through
her father’s influence she attended what is now South Carolina
State College.

Strom continued his rise in politics. By now Governor of South
Carolina, Strom would come to see her at the college, identifying
her as a family friend. Essie Mae relates the story of how Strom
became the standard bearer of the Dixiecrat Party, carrying the
hope of Southern whites to keep segregation in place. He was the
product of this system and sincerely believed that separate but
equal was the way to go. Strom incurred the wrath of Harry Truman
in 1948 when he led the Deep South in revolt against Harry Truman
after Truman supported Civil Rights. Southern whites bombarded
the White House with hate mail. At the Southern Governor’s
Conference in Tallahassee, Fla., the South was in vitriolic revolt.
Strom took it upon himself to defend “the honor of the South”
and attacked President Truman relentlessly, which made him immensely
popular in the South.

Essie Mae was in college at the time and miserable. Her father
had gone from someone who helped blacks to being their worst enemy.
She couldn’t talk to anyone and carried her anguish alone.
By now she had decided to get married to Julius Williams, a fellow
student who was a former Marine and WWII vet, without him knowing
who her father was. When she told him, he was bemused and didn’t
want to tell anyone about the familial connection, either.

As Thurmond rose in the national spotlight, he and Essie Mae
maintained their relationship. It was a very unusual one. He was
always interested in his daughter and kept tabs on every stage
of her life. He offered her advice and gave her money. When he
became senator, she visited him often, one time taking her older
son, Julius Jr., when he was about 7. Because of his political
ambitions, Strom was careful to keep their relationship private.
Essie Mae, always the reticent one, at times would muster up the
courage to confront him on some of his positions, believing she
influenced him to change. She watched his public life from the
sidelines – his two marriages, the death of his first wife,
the birth of four children to his second. He showed interest in
the growth of her family – Julius attending law school,
their four children. Essie visited him many times at his Senate
office for updates.

Essie never got the full scope of her mother’s relationship
with her father, but she believed he cared for her very deeply.
Carrie was a teenage worker in the Thurmond family home when she
got pregnant, a common social occurrence in those days. Carrie’s
death from kidney failure at age 36 deeply touched him.

Strom was there for Essie when Julius died suddenly of a heart
attack, leaving her a young widow in Los Angeles to rear four
children. His monetary gifts were a big help. Though many speculated
over the years that she was Strom’s daughter, Essie never
talked to any media. The chief reason was that she loved her father
and didn’t want to do anything to harm him. She kept the
secret so closely that she didn’t tell her own children
until her oldest son was almost 20 years old. That was occasioned
by the Senator’s visit to California for a speaking engagement
and his wanting to meet all of her children – his grandchildren,
though he never called them that. They couldn’t fathom this
connection either, and were enraged and embarrassed by it, but
kept their mother’s secret.

Peace at Last

Though Essie Mae loved her father and he loved her, she never
sat down and had even a Coke in public with him. In the '90s,
as he gradually slowed with age, she was mindful of the hurts
over the years of not being included in his family gatherings.
She was saddened to hear of the death of his daughter who was
killed by a drunk driver; it was sad, too, that she could not
attend the funeral and grieve with him and the family.

Even more difficult was his death on June 26, 2003, and she could
not be there as the nation paid respects. “I tried to feel
at peace with the passing of my father,” Essie says, “but
I couldn’t.” Strom Thurmond had won big in life, with
enormous power, prestige, a great family. “Why was I so
unsettled, so discontent? It was because he and I had never really
made our peace,” she says. He had changed, this was true,
but says Essie, “he and I had never so much as sat down
together for a meal. We had never said 'I love you' to each other.
We had never confronted the reality of our relationship. Too much
remained unsaid.”

Essie’s daughter Wanda refused to let her off the confrontation
hook. "He’s gone now," she said. "Why don’t
you write a book?" Wanda also wondered about the financial
settlements to come. Essie was 78 years old and still very hesitant
to do anything, but she did agree to at least let Wanda talk to
a lawyer about it. The lawyer, Frank Wheaton, knew he had a monumental
task to try to establish paternity, but was willing to take it
on. Finding a lawyer in South Carolina to work with was daunting.
His first letter to the Thurmond attorneys brought a curt reply
and no compliance.

With the six-month statute of limitations running out in days,
going to the media was his only option. He contacted a reporter
from the Washington Post who’d been suspicious
for years, scheduled a press conference in S.C., and Dan Rather
was scheduled to come to her L.A . home for an interview. During
the same time, Saddam Hussein was captured, which took over the
news cycle. But Dan still wanted to do the story and asked Essie
Mae to come to New York. At the airport, just as they were leaving
for New York, the Thurmond estate contacted Frank Wheaton to say
that they accepted the genetic paternity of Mrs. Essie Mae Washington-Williams.
Essie says having her secret made public was like a weight lifted
from her shoulders. She could now take her own special place in
history. She at last had peace.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams believes in Jesus Christ. Her spiritual
foundation has been the primary influence in her humility and
the ability to survive through the years.